113 comments:

Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via a chain of thought, or an internet search) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.

I used a bit of logic to solve this.I wonder how many times this car manufacturer has appeared in the Sunday Puzzle in the last sixteen years or so.Just getting my two cents in now while I can still hear myself think.

I enjoyed deducing, on My oWn, the key letters. That enabled me to discern the manufacturer without having to consult a list, and the rest came together in a very satisfying manner, kind of like a brand new car door latch.

Hmmmm... Mr. Bloom reminds himself to include "Greek ees" in his clandestine correspondence. Looking at "Greek e" images on Google, I see the W (or M) rotated ninety degrees, and indeed this is the sigma, but it not called that by Mr. Bloom. ---Rob

Another easy puzzle, another bonus puzzle:Think of a famous playwright's last name. Write it in all capital letters. Rotate one of these letters 90 degrees and another of the letters 180 degrees. The result will name a former kingdom. What are they?

Yikes! Not the comment section I was hoping for on my first puzzle submission. I sent in a batch of puzzles quite a while ago (which included this one) with puzzles that were considerably harder than this one. However, even if you thought it was easy, I hope most of you at least found it enjoyable!

Congratulations, Tyler. 'Tis a fine puzzle which I enjoyed also. Will Shortz just seems to have been choosing easier-to-solve puzzles lately. Perhaps it's a "summertime-and-the-solvin'-is-easy" situation. Perhaps also, Will will opt to use some of your tougher puzzle submissions come autumn. (no intentional hints in this post)

The verses from Ecclesiastes refer to the ceaseless search for wisdom (which the author suggests is to some extent futile): "Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning." "Ceaseless search" connotes "wanderlust," while Mazda means "wisdom" in the original Avestan.

This morning, as I answered a call of Nature, I had to walk by the computer and saw the new puzzle was up. I read it and returned back to bed where I immediately solved it. I don't know why the make of car came to mind first, but it did. The rest was very quick and easy to see, and so I then got up and posted the following at the end of last week's blog:

skydiveboy Sun Jul 02, 05:36:00 AM PDT

A very, very tired SDB is very happy that, again, we do not have to think hard to solve this one. Back to bed and lots more sleep, I hope.End.

No hint. It doesn't need one, although I had been thinking of one similar to Blaine's, but later saw his, and therefore I will leave it at that, and be happy I believe I have solved my car problem, except to say that while I am very familiar with the girl's name, I don't agree that it is common.

One of my coworkers had a long-distance relationship with a woman of this name, whom he visited regularly. Which called for revision of the dictionaries in our workplace to substitute this new, much more a propos word for the loan word that was found there before.

I cannot recall ever having known or encountered anyone with this name, and I meet a lot of people. Just because we may all be aware of this name, and perhaps even knowing someone with it, does not make it a "common" name.

My coworker was seeing Wanda, who lived a thousand miles from here. So we xeroxed a page out of Webster's, removed the definition for "wanderlust" and substituted one for "wandalust," the ceaseless desire to travel to see Wanda.

Take a synonym of mosaicist, then name a homophone of that synonym. Now take the plural form of a human body part and a fowl critter's body part, leaving no space between.The result is the name of an excellent puzzle-making puzzlemaster.

Criss-cross our back alley, Diagonalley, the hidden street in Harry Potter’s world where magical supplies could be purchased. Olive and her, Ollivander’s, where Harry Potter purchased his magic WAND. MAZDA was also an old (pre-1945) brand of Christmas lights.

Where's Zeke Creek these days? Maybe I should try and fill in for him just this once.

On the subject of "common" and what constitutes a name being common: Let's put it all in more understandable terms. Let us consider all the various varieties of potatoes and their distinctive names. Would you all agree that the Russet is most likely the most commentator?

I say don't be a yarrow-minded chickweed. Unless I miss my cress, veggie puns are in a leek of their own. Sure, it sounds ridicchio, but you must beetroot to yourself. Look at me. I yam what I yam. And I know SDB may know his onions when it comes to veggie puns, but his bok choy may be worse than his bite. At least they don't pay him a celery to do this. Besides, Natasha, what would a chickpea doing using veggie puns anyway? Most women don't even carrot all. A fine tomato like you shouldn't anyway. You might end up in the looney bean! If I were you, I'd squash this Whole Foods thing. Peas be with you.

Excuse my little veggie pun tangent. I figured it wouldn't kale me to join the conversation. You may think it's small potatoes, or that I'm a lentil case. It just seems to me there's two sides to every corn. It's the chicory or the eggplant. In the endive been proven right.

Natasha:Actually I have attended several Rotary Club lunches as a guest of my 93 year old uncle who lives 2,000 miles East of me. For him Rotary was his religion, until he finally quit due to age. I found them very interesting, sorta like watching mold grow on cheese. I hated having to stand for the Pledge (furniture wax?) of Allegiance in order not to embarrass my uncle though.

My Hint: “I may not be able to post the answer at noon today as I will be attending a Rotary lunch with my uncle.” Rotary lunches are not exactly my thing, but it makes for a nice hint (which jan got quickly) as Mazda was known for their rotary engines.

My clue, about taking part of the girl’s name and part of a body part and rearranging to get something the car make was famous for, refers to the WANKEL (WANda/anKLE) engine, used in a number of Mazdas.

A worthwhile side effect of the Puzzle this week:I am listening as I post to an LP I bought around 1960 with 20 sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti played on the harpsichord by Wanda Landowska.I made mention earlier to her as a well-tempered Polish-French performer.I learned some things about her interesting and varied life this week that I am not sure was very available back when I first heard of her.

Is it noteworthy that it doesn't make any difference whether you rotate N left or right to make Z?

Puzzleria! is now uploaded. We feature this week a very clever puzzle created by cranberry (aka Patrick). We also offer a handful of Shortz-Rip/Riff-Offs and a puzzle about carpenters, blacksmiths and members of another profession.

Here is the answer to the bonus puzzle I posted Monday:Take a synonym of mosaicist, then name a homophone of that synonym. Now take the plural form of a human body part and a fowl critter's body part, leaving no space between.The result is the name of an excellent puzzle-making puzzlemaster.Answer: Tyler (tiler = mosaicist) Lipscomb, the puzzlemaster who is the creator of the WANDA/MAZDA puzzle.

This week's challenge comes from Martin Eiger of Montville, NJ. He's a member of the National Puzzlers' League, which is holding its 178th convention in Boston this weekend. Take a certain 7-letter word. Remove the first letter and you get a 6-letter synonym of that word. And the letter you removed is an abbreviation for the opposite of both words. What words are these?